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Do You Remember When....
maskedweasel
Member LegendaryPosts: 12,195
Do you remember ...
When you would log in to an MMO just to be in a different world?
When you would hang out in Taverns/Cantinas just to socialize?
When you would create a character build based on what you wanted rather then what was "viable"?
When a game would launch and would not be 100% perfect and that would be OKAY?
When you would group up with players for the fun of completing content instead of the rewards?
When you would become friends with those you grouped with instead of dropping them when the quest is over?
When getting to max level was the least of your concerns?
When playing that MMO was more of an experience then "just another game"?
When you could leave a game amicably instead of it being a "failure" or that you "regret buying it"?
When you would play a game regardless of its payment model because you enjoyed it?
When the MMO Experience was actually FUN?
What happened to those times?
Comments
This is the primary reason why MMOs today quickly tank.
No time to chat. Must rush to the next quest. They are the bulk of xp and rewards. Quest Hubs killed MMOs. Vanguard's slow death is not because of framerate, nor system specs, nor occasional crashes, nor unfinished content. Friendship bonds did not form because players rushed from quest to quest.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Um...I play Vanguard now, and have made MANY friends that I regularly group with and chat with.
I'm not saying that I haven't found some of these things in current MMOs, but it is rare.
MMOs give players a very distinct experience in comparison to other games. You are brought into a world, and you are put in contact with many more people. Many MMOs today are more interested in cultivating the engine that drives some kind of progression or story to an end-state, and players are playing them like single player games, where the objective is to get to the end to claim their final rewards.
While most games now are technically more proficient, better coded, better handled, and better looking, they lose quite a bit of the soul a lot of the players are looking for when playing an MMO. It doesn't seem that in many MMO's today that players even matter.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Guess what though, its not that the times have changes, its the people who changed.
If you go back and replay all those 'awesome' games, you'll see that there is hardly anything awesome about them besides your memories.
The only reason they seemed awsome back in the day, was because thay were the best there was at the time.
+1
I've made that point many times here in many discussions but there are many nostalgic die-hards that will argue against it all day long.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
It's called Ultima Online and it still exists. Especially in emulated form. I don't know why mmorpg.com is so anti-uo emulation when EA even realises that it is legal.
I went back to play FFVII. By today's standards, the graphics are horrible, the battle style is ancient, the story, while still good, is pretty straightforward... and on and on...
But when it launched... The graphics were awesome, the battle style was great and involved, the story had no comparison, and would be a true tear-jerker (yes, did make me tear up), and I enjoyed, and played it several times through.
What changed? Same thing that changed in MMO: the envioroment, the graphic cap, the expectations and the overall experiences of the consumers.
It is like the first time you have a sugary snack. It would be the best thing in the world for you. Even if it was just a skittles. But once you grew up and had better refined tastes, now you want some creme-brulee that has been expertly baked by a top chef. And even then it probably doesn't live up to what you expect.
By the standards we had 15+ years ago, the games coming out now are absolutly intoxicating. But by current standards, many are completely sub-par. By the standards we had 15 years ago, 100k players would be a huge success in online gaming. Today it would be concidered utter failure, or at least a botched release.
Like someone else already stated, it is not the games that have changed, but the audience.
Haha, show some respect, grandpas built the interwebz!
About the OP. Yeah. I guess we need a new type of MMO for all that to happen. We've sliced this type of MMO down to its bare path of least resistence.
It has nothing to do with nostalgia, and everything to do with how different the communities are, and how much games have shifted their system compared to their old counterparts.
Older MMOs were developped more as sandboxes or at least giving players as many tools as possible to do what they want to do (UO, SWG, etc). They would also require the involvement of several players to achieve even basic things such as leveling (EQ, FFXI, etc). Both of these things created great communities of players that care about more than just themselves, but also the people they play and interact with.
Today's MMOs are very restrictive in terms of what players can do, and are extremely solo-centric. Rather than being about communities, MMOs are about "You". The need to interact with other players has greatly lessened with the exception of end-game, but the need to develop any relationship was also removed through the addition of PUGs.
That is not to say that older MMOs were perfect, by no mean were they even close. However, to claim that our preference to older MMOs is purely out of nostalgia, considering how different the games and communities were compared to today, is just pure ignorance.
I totaly agree. Especially since the old mmos were fishing new waters. No one knew where the industry was heading back then so the mistakes that were made were life lessons. Now they are just neglegence. However, I found the WAR community and the current LOTRO community to be awsome and totally make the games more fun despite how the critics feel about the game in general.
Don't they still make sandbox mmo's? Are the communitys in those just like back in the day? My first mmo was FF11 and I hate the idea of forced grouping to do basic stuff like kill rabbits to lvl up. It created very "exclusive" groups of players that expected you to play a certain way in order to maximize the exp gain per hour. Fun was never a consideration, only the most effiecient way to lvl. I was so happy the first time I played wow and found out I don't need to LFG for a tank and a healer to kill rats. I made far more friends in wow then in FF11 and some of those friends I still have to this day..in spite of moving on from wow years ago.
Those old sandbox games where more like 2nd jobs then games. And when a game becomes like a job I no longer play it, hence why I quit wow. Back then the community for mmos was more tightly knit. It was a niche genre that barely anyone knew about. If you made a bad name for yourself you where screwed...theses days there are so many mmos and most of them allowe name changes and server transfers...we are also dealing with a different generation of gamers.
I keep posting this, no one gets it.
Diminishing Marginal Utility
The experience and enjoyment you had while playing games of the past, will unlikely happen again. Atleast not in the same way. The "perfect" MMO can be released tomorrow and you would not derive the same amount of enjoyment from it as you did your first couple of MMO's. Put future games you play into this context.
Only way around this is to unplug from MMO's and the MMO community. Approach the genre again years from now. Im guessing 5 years or more.
I wondered how long the "S" word would take to come out as well as the mention of those magical communities of old. I have nothing against looking at the world through rose-colored glasses--heck I do it myself at times--but I'm just not comfortable deluding myself into thinking that I'm not wearing them.
MMOs AND society in general have changed tremendously since UO, AC and EQ were the only games in town...even since the days when DAoC, SWG and even WOW first came into the scene.
There was no Facebook, and IM, text messaging and twitter hadn't shortened the way we communicate irrevocably to the point where saying "Word" is considered a clever quip. People socialized more in MMOs back then because any type of socialization through electronic text was a relatively new shiny toy... now it's just the way of the world.
Those wonderful old communities you contend were a magical part of good MMO design were nothing more than a byproduct of MMO gamers being a small sub-set of the population that was generally more committed to our unique and rather exclusive little hobby... and we were chattier just because communicating that way was a relatively new thing that not many people i the mainstream even knew about.
MMORPGs are now played by the mainstream masses who routinely communicate electronically as briefly as possible. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with Sandboxes nor solo play nor any of the other tired old cliched mmorpg.com forum reasons. It's just 2013. You're looking for sophisticated game-design reasons for your relative lack of enjoyment when all that has happened is that games, gamers and society have just evolved rather quickly.
It amuses me how people like you like to throw the word "ignorant" around while at the same time ignoring the obvious.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
For some of the questions, the answer is: nope, I've never seen a game that was like that.
For the rest, the answer is: it still is like that, at least the way I play.
Rose tinted goggles are a nasty thing.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
I can honestly say, I never did that. Then again, I have never wanted to "escape" from real life, I consider people who want to do that to have serious problems.
While there have been times I've done that, mostly when I'm busy chatting with friends and need a place to park my character, I don't use MMOs to socialize in general, I have plenty of friends in RL and I don't need to pretend online.
I still do.
There's a difference between not being 100% perfect and being broken. Far too many games launch today that are simply unfinished and are virtually unplayable. That is not okay.
I'd still do that today if anyone else played that way.
It depends on the people. If they are decent people I had fun talking to, I'd put them on my watch list and talk to them again. If not, why would I want to be their "friend"?
It still isn't.
No, it's not and never has been. An MMO is just one genre of game, it's played to have fun. If I play an FPS, it's just another game, if I play a platformer, it's just another game, why should an MMO be anything different?
I leave all games amicably when I stop having fun playing them. How long it takes getting to that point varies by game.
That's still the case. All I want is to have fun. I really don't care what it costs.
I have no clue what "the MMO Experience" is, it's just a game and, like any game, has to be fun in order for me to take part.
They're still around, adjusted for the modern reality. Maybe your expectations are out of line?
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Oh, but it has to do with sandbox/themepark and group/solo play. It has everything to do with it. How else do you think the genre became mainstream? Did it magically happen over night? No. It happened by making features and mechanics increasingly more accessible to a larger audience. Which is not to say that it's necessarily a bad thing, but it's costed us a lot of things those of us who played older MMORPGs enjoy.
MMOs in the past were group-oriented. MMOs today are solo-centric. We had incentive to group in the past, it was more pleasant, and we could achieve a lot more as well. Today, grouping is less efficient than solo play. The need to interact with other players is not present,players are self-sufficient, best gear is through monster loot rather than crafted, etc. Heck, grouping is less rewarding than solo-play because you'll have less gold and items at the end of the run. Players only care about their own advancement and couldn't care less about others.
I'm not looking for a "sophisticated game-design reason for my relative lack of enjoyment". Games have changed their design completely, that's the reality. If you like this design, good for you. I prefer the old one and I find that it's a shame so few MMOs try to bring it back.
A couple things, MMO's back then didn't give "incentive" to group. They required that you group. MMO's these days give you incentive...things like faster exp gain, safer..don't have to worry about dying.(as much) The option to go to areas with "elite" mobs or something similar. That would be incentive.
I also disagree with your assesment of newer MMO's being "solo-centric"...you have the option to solo while lvling...Dungeons/pvp/raids all still require groups. The genre became mainstream because a popular franchise at the time (warcraft) was made into an mmo that didn't rigidly enforce the need for a full group with tank and healer to kill rats. You could actually play at your own pace. Furthermore the total time it took to reach cap wasn't anywhere near as long. The NEED to group with others is still there...just not during lvling...instead you have the OPTION to group. And don't spread lies..in now way shape or form is lvling in a group inferior to lvling solo.
There where other reasons mmos went mainstream..WOW had a lvl of polish not seen in mmo's before it....the whole idea that the community back then was so great is false anyway..I seem to remember plenty of asshats..its just there was less people overall...so less asshats by default!
And it always mythifies me why people obsessed about "community" so much. It all boils down to whether i have a few friends and strangers to play with. Who cares if there are millions? I won't have time for 99.999% of them anyway.
And for that, i found enough good fun people to play with (RL familes/friend or strangers) in all online games i have played (not just MMOs).